Das schöne Mädchen (The Beautiful Girl)

One of the leading women in the Dada movement, Höch pioneered the photomontage, a form of collage that makes use of photographic images. She began developing the style in 1918, a few years before the creation of Das schöne Mädchen. Höch’s work often commented on gender and racial discrimination, women’s sexuality, and androgyny. In this piece, she was interested in the idea of the “New Woman”, and what it really meant for women. A woman’s body is combined with car parts, the background plastered with BMW logos. The face of a woman appears in the upper right corner, her eyes replaced with those of a cat. This mechanized, “industrialized” woman represents how while women were getting more opportunities in the workforce, these opportunities along with the notion of the “New Woman” were predetermined and controlled by men, who still held the most societal power.